(Then, don't demonize the e-bike. It allows longer journeys by bike, makes a bike a realistic option for older and less healthy people who couldn't get around by pedal power alone, and makes it a more fun/appealing option for healthy people)
I ride all kinds of bikes, MTB, gravel, road, bikepack/touring. A bonafide cycling enthusiast. I use an e-bike to commute, because my main aim is to get to work, and that I can do that by bike is rad.
People should see e-bikes as a replacement for a car commute, not as a replacement for cycling. I still do plenty of that, but I also have get the groceries and get to work.
Yeap - my e-bike is a kid hauler, with the battery canceling out ~80lbs extra weight to make it feel like my road bike. We know so many parents who’ve picked those instead of a car (or more likely SUV).
The right way to think about it is as a two order of magnitude reduction in the amount of battery needed to transport the same number of people compared to an EV, and without all of the other negative impacts on city life.
And for many people living in apartments, even storing a bike at home is problematic, you don't really want to be lugging an e-bike up/down stairs every day.
If we want cycling to be treated as a serious form of transport, then we need to treat bike theft almost as seriously as car theft.
(But it seems that we're going in the other direction, and allowing car theft to rise as ever-younger kids learn how to steal cars from videos on social media)
The old Italian classic movie “Bicycle Thieves” is almost 100 years old now.
In many places (I’m most familiar with Seattle) the rate of bicycle theft is so high it has to be organized crime. I once saw (assumed “homeless”) people on Capitol Hill openly carry around bolt cutters while looking through bike racks and taking whatever they could. They had at least a dozen bike haul and it looked like the police didn’t stop them. There’s no way they are pawning off that many bikes. There are at least a handful of sophisticated fences and a real crime ring in the city targeting bikes, creating a huge incentive for addicts to steal them. And I don’t see much political will to take these down.
Ok, but. Get this. There are places in the world, that have to deal with negative temperatures and heavy snow. Bikes are downright dangerous in non-ideal conditions
Amen to that! An old steel bike like that, aside from lasting almost indefinitely if you don't let it rust to pieces, is a platform.
I could take the bike shown at the top of the article and upgrade it to a modern 2x11 road geartrain, with external bottom bracket bearings, hollow shaft bottom bracket, brifters, the whole works. Longer axles on modern rear wheels? No problem to bend the frame slightly - it's steel! - to make them fit perfectly. I've done it. I have a 40 year old steelie that is currently at 2x8 and could go to 2x10 without changing the rear hub again. It rides at least as nice as a modern carbon fiber marvel. It is of course heavier (12kg all up).
Another of my road bikes has the drive train from a similar vintage mountain bike. I wanted a triple, and the simplest way was to just transplant the long cage derailer to go with it.
Modern bikes that I see in the bike racks at work? Carbon fiber marvels with integrated e-bike drivetrain. They're only a motor failure, or even a worn out battery pack (assuming not available any more from the manufacturer as spares) away from being e-waste just like all other modern gadgets. Retrofit to different brand stuff? Forget it. The frame is an integrated design with the drivetrain.
But how do you roll back time and get people to ride "sensible" bikes again? When the modern marvels can be manufactured just as cheaply and they're just so much cooler? Good luck with that.
> Longer axles on modern rear wheels? No problem to bend the frame slightly - it's steel! - to make them fit perfectly
What happens when you descend at 50kmh/30mph and the bent fork gives out/brakes don't work because it wasn't exact? Worth your life/health?
> It rides at least as nice as a modern carbon fiber marvel. It is of course heavier (12kg all up).
Carbon bikes aren't all about weight. You can make some parts of the frame stiffer and other more flexible (impossible with metal frames), which helps handling and comfort massively.
> Modern bikes that I see in the bike racks at work? Carbon fiber marvels with integrated e-bike drivetrain. They're only a motor failure, or even a worn out battery pack (assuming not available any more from the manufacturer as spares) away from being e-waste just like all other modern gadgets. Retrofit to different brand stuff? Forget it. The frame is an integrated design with the drivetrain.
E-bikes are an oddity, they aren't mainstream for bikes meant for sport. With electronic shifting however, you can pair different ones with SRAM AXS. Same with Shimano's Di2.
Forks that are bent are bent because of an incident. ("Just riding along" being a common one. (no, really, running into something)). Been there, done that, twice, on Aluminum forks. You get them replaced, and it's fine.
Bending the rear triangle out 2mm on a side is well known for steel bikes, first in the 6sp->7sp transition (120->126 mm) and then in the 8+ 126->130mm transition. There are even bikes with a 132.5 spacing so that they can take 130 or 135mm hubs.
You can absolutely make metal bikes stiffer or more flexible, directionally. Titanium pivotless bikes are the poster child for that, but people have been monkeying with tube shapes and sizes forever.
Descending at 30, 40 or 50mph really isn't that big of a deal on a competent bike. They track, they're more stable at speed, and sitting up will be a hell of an airbrake to start. You often don't even need the brakes. Just be careful if you do it where you have a T junction at the bottom or side traffic. (e.g., queen anne hill in seattle)
Actually I descend at 70-74km/h. Routinely. The main worry would be a tire failure. The odds of a rear triangle failing on a steel bike because it was bent outward by 2mm on each side are approximately zero.
That said if the front fork on a steelie gets bent even a little bit by an accident, I don't ride it any more. I've had to retire one for that reason.
No disrespect but this is sounding a lot like a ca. 2000's gifted Linux user talking to someone who isn't that into computers. "That's easy [for me]! Simply do [thing requiring talent and skill] with your [open flexible platform]." What you're saying is all true but I wouldn't call it approachable or advisable for the mainstream audience.
This "gifted Linux user" has set up a couple of Linux laptops for my >80 year old mom who lives 8 hours' drive away. They've been a lot less PITA than Windows! Things have come a long way. They do have one "gifted Linux user" type hack in them - an always up SSH connection to my home base, with reverse tunnels for a couple of ports. But the tech support I've had to give is of the "accidentally changed the sort order in Thunderbird" variety. The Linux platform has been flawless.
The author points out that China produces 55,000 bikes a day in factories using robotics with a certain energy and CO2 impact -- but should compare that impact to that of laborers producing the same amount of bicycles the old-fashioned way, including the impact of transporting them to and from the place of work.
Can you think how much less 'new bikes' could be required if students in schools (10 to 14 years old maybe ?) were to learn some basic bike fixing skills and bike maintenance ? I feel like I have so many friends who have no idea how to do the most basic operations, like changing a chamber. This could have such a big impact.
And it goes much further. A bike is potentially something that is quite easy to comprehend, and relatively simple to repair and maintain, and the experience of doing so can instill a sense of ability, control, and responsibility, vs. helpless consumerism.
55k is not that much imo. ~50k people are born everyday in China and if we assume that the same number reach an age where they need a bike everyday the number seems quite reasonable. Maybe even a bit low taking the export market into account.
edited: Also lots of great durable bikes are made in China.
Yes you're right it doesn't seem astronomical, though I'm sure the global number is higher. But, China's population is now shrinking I believe, and I don't think bikes are grave goods.
First, people don't know that bicycle components are replaceable and fairly standardized. Second, replacing a few worn out parts with decent quality replacements costs more than a new bike-shaped object.
It depends on the country. Here in Argentina you never send a bike to the scrap yard. First you try to fix it yourself, then go to the local bike shop that is 5 blocks (1/2 mile) away. When it's too old you give it to your nephew. And when it's really old or has a massive problem it may be cannibalized and the remainders send to a scrap yard.
I guess experiences vary: I’ve never heard that – in fact, people who bought cheap Walmart bikes were surprised when they learned that a part was non-standard and hard to replace.
My experience with the cheap bikes is that literally every component is garbage, and if one fails, it's not long before something else does.
The frames can sometimes be fairly durable, but I've had plenty of mount points shear off and stuff like that, even if the frame doesn't outright fail.
The other problem is that the entire design is often just kitsch 'fashion' and 'disposable', and even if you could fix it/upcycle it economically, it's so heavily 'styled' as to make it undesirable.
In what way do these bikes fail typically, do you know? It might not be a matter of manufacturing but rather maintenance, if the frame doesn't fail you can definitely fix it, usually pretty cheap if it is a commodity bike.
I only have my own experience and some travel to go off, but I routinely see 20+ year old bikes still kicking about, riding as if they were new. I used to do my own repairs at a non-profit that helped people keep their bikes on the road, it's not very challenging or expensive to keep most bikes moving.
Carbon and aluminum bike frames die from fatigue, eventually. And since they're weaker materials (carbon is very strong in some ways, very weak in others) they're more liable to actually crack or bend irreversibly in a crash.
Steel and titanium, to my knowledge, will never break from fatigue alone. You essentially need to hit them with a car or a hammer to break em. And you can always keep those frames going indefinitely with welded fixes, as long as you know a decent welder. Rust is what gets steel in the long term, if you don't keep your bike clean, especially if your town salts roads in the winter. But it's otherwise very robust.
In the USA it seems like a lot of people just like new bikes, and neglect their old bikes. Some get stolen. Enthusiasts get upgradeitis. But compared to the carbon footprint of smartphones, cars, asphalt roads, factory farming, and a million other things, I'm not convinced it's a major issue.
In the west I think you are right, there's a bit of keeping up with the jonses going on. Lots of new specializations happening too, suddenly it's not good enough to have just a mountain bike, it has to fit the right specialization too. Downhill, enduro, trail, XC, gravel! I think we have finally ran out of sensibile suspension travel divisions to group bikes around, it might calm down now.
I think the fatigue rate of an aluminum frame is overblown a bit. It is certainly a fact about aluminium, but does it actually occur over the lifetime and use of a typical frame? You can expect to use an AL frame for 10+ years, or tens of thousands of KMs, so it still has a longer shelf life than I think most cyclists have enthusiasm to ride.
Consider that most AL frames are made of 2024 or 6061, the same stuff used on aircraft wings which have significant lifespans (30+ years). It depends on the grade and craftsmanship of course but I would not personally worry about the AL itself.
I've had a Aluminum CX bike (kinesis built) have a fatigue failure in the bottom bracket cluster. That one also had the non-drive side crank have a fatigue crack at the BB interface. I've had a (cheap) Trek steel late 80's mountain bike have a fatigue failure at the chainstay bridge. Each one had thousands of miles, but not 10k.
In each case, it was probably more of a welding or detailing issue than the actual material involved.
Very frustrating to have an otherwise well maintained mountain bike and bombproof wheelset with a snapped fork. To get a new fork I need a new frame and front wheel. 20mm-thru axles are no longer popular. Headsets similarly have changed design.
At this point I have a room of partial bicycles just collecting dust.
When new some of these bicycles were more valuable (retail price of all components) than a cheap used car. Then there's the problem of importing them, dealing with customs shakedowns or traveling abroad to purchase them.
Internal gearhubs and fat chains are a good choice if you are looking for longevity. Avoid the latest fads where possible. For my usage weight savings is secondary to overall durability.
That would seem to me to be the larger issue — at least here in the U.S. among the ranks of the Gentlemen Velocipedists. The big bike brands are, understandably, pushing their new model bikes with new features. (I remember when it was the newfangled elliptical front sprockets.)
I do feel the article is a little over-worrisome though. Any bicycle that replaces an automobile has such an overwhelming positive impact in so many areas that complaining about the energy required to make an aluminum frame vs. a steel one seems to be quibbling.
My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West.
> My understanding too is that energy intensive manufacturing, like that of aluminum, often take place in regions of the world where energy is cheap: as an example the hydroelectric power along the Columbia River in the U.S. North West.
In the west that's true - mostly American companies operating in Iceland and Norway where there's cheap hydroelectric power, the US isn't one of the top smelters. This involve shipped a lot of alumina and aluminium about.
In China it's dug up, extracted, smelted and manufactured all within China. I don't know if that's because energy is cheap, but it's quite possibly not green!
It seems like people rebuilding or repairing cars can easily find spare parts either new or second hand. Why is the situation different for bicycles?
I suppose you need the ecosystem of wrecking yards for bicycles and then you need bicycle mechanics who are willing to use spare parts which might be an issue considering that all the places I would go to get my bike fixed would rather sell me a new bike.
AFAIK the car makers are required to maintain inventories of spares. And whether by this mechanism or some other, cars have fairly accurate and consistent parts lists, making it relatively easy to figure out which part number is needed for which car. Perhaps the higher volume of car repairs also supports a competitive market for providing parts on quick notice. My independent mechanic has never taken more than a day to fix my car, and that includes getting the parts.
With bikes, it's a crap shoot. A typical new bike model does not come with a parts list, and the brands don't stock spares. Every repair turns into a guessing game on which part will actually fit the bike, and a search for a supplier. If the shop needs a part, it has to be ordered and shipped from some distant city. The parts makers (e.g., the biggest one is Shimano) decide when a particular style of part is obsolete and discontinued, and you're on your own.
Cheaper bikes (within reason) are better -- they tend to use parts from older standards that are still in widespread use worldwide. For instance there was a long time period (after the so called "bike boom") when most bikes had reasonably interchangeable parts, and many of those component standards such as bottom brackets are still being used today. My hacked together bikes from 1980s parts are still easy to maintain today with minimal skills and tools.
The other thing is, the vast majority of cars are not used for competition or sport, and are treated to fairly mild and predictable operating conditions, the exception being when they crash.
> A typical new bike model does not come with a parts list, and the brands don't stock spares.
This is probably true for BSOs, but you start getting a complete list of components on a bicycle well before you hit the $1000 price point, and generally everything other than the brake pads are extremely standardized and easy to find. For whatever reason manufacturers really like to get creative with disk brake pad shapes.
I've hacked on bikes since the 80's, and I think things are better now(ish), at least if you're not going full squish or hydraulic brakes.
I've got 2 bikes with SRAM Rival and Apex that have had perfectly crisp shifting for 7k miles each. There might have been one adjustment barrel turn in there somewhere. They've got some sort of modern, trouble free bottom bracket with a hollow axle. I don't even know, because it's that maintenance free. And that shifting? Much easier than the post bike boom downtube friction shifters.
Whereas with my 80's tech bikes, I repacked hubs and bottom brackets every so often, at least until I went with the (more disposable) shimano cartridge BBs. Shifting always needed a little bit of adjustment. My wheels were better than, but I built those wheels (and I know my stuff), but I'm using commercial wheels now. Changing brake pads now is a 2 minute job, just slide them out and put new ones in. It used to be that you'd need to re-align the brake shoes too.
Maybe I wasn't all that good at it, but I think I was decent at wrenching. I can strip and reassemble a bike, with the possible exception of the headset races. The bikes now might be less maintainable, but critically, my bikes now just don't need as much maintenance.
The invention of the 4 bolt face for the stem is 1000% better than quill stems where you had to pull the brakes and tape off to get 10mm more or less reach. They're also significantly less likely for them to move around against the fork. Threadless headsets are also far easier to set properly and keep them there.
The style of larger tires on road bikes is awesome. Comfort and speed. It's nice to be able to get a sub 15 lb bike. 18 used to be stupid light, now it's just a bit pricey. They're not workhorses, but they're fun.
For utility, racks are better now. Low rider front racks and the standard mount rear racks were only really introduced in the 80s. There are good front and rear racks at multiple price points that work for light duty or full blown continent crossing epics. You can _get_ cargo bikes, in a variety of shapes, with e-boost and not.
Yes, there are bits that aren't compatible. Most shifters need to be paired with compatible derailleurs. Be careful on hydraulic brakes. You have to know if you have disks or rim brakes. You might need to use the proper chain, at least of the right # of speeds. It's difficult to find 27" rim/tires anymore. Shimano doesn't sell replacement bearing cups for their hubs, though you can get the cones. Campy does tho. Its really hard to find a good 8sp mountain freewheel these days.
If you want, you can still go full analog and get downtube 11sp friction shifters with non-aero center pull brakes, all with new parts, and it's not even that hard to find if you know where to look, though economy of scale means that it's not going to be cheap.
It's not really. Any decent bike shop has bins full of spare parts and take-offs. Then you always have eBay, Marketplace, etc. to find something strange.
Bicycle parts are incredibly standardized compared to cars. Outside exotic racing bikes almost every brand uses the same Shimano parts or compatible copies from other brands. And even between component brands, the way the components attach to frames are somewhat standardized so replacing an entire Shimano drivetrain with Campagnolo or vice versa is possible. The problem is that there are a bit too many standards now.
Those are the "good bikes" - the article (and I suspect the vast majority of bikes) are the Walmart specials, some of which might use standard components but much of which appear to be one-offs or similar.
It would be nice if there WAS a standard - some rating on the box indicating how "replaceable" parts on the bike are, somehow.
I'm not from the US so I can't just go to Walmart and see. What are these non-standard parts? I'm aware that cheap shock absorbers can be quite wild but what weird parts would a non-suspension bike have? Of course you don't have threaded headsets or freewheels on nice bikes but those are still available and don't have many variants.
I agree that the main reason these things aren't repaired is that a new bike costs less than a couple of spare parts and labor.
But I seriously doubt that the weird size pedal assembly is something else than bog standard Fauber crank. Those things are still made and I can't imagine how a custom part would be cheaper to manufacture.
(This is probably location dependent, I have no doubt that the Netherlands supports a density of bike shops adequate to its millions of daily bike users)
> For my usage weight savings is secondary to overall durability.
I completely agree with that ! Even when bike touring, weight is so much less important than reliability of your gear... It's particularly surprising and sad to notice that older gear is more reliable and of better quality than most new bikes. I guess some brand still provide super high quality and reliable bicycles, but probably it could be hard to maintain yourself (which is definitely another of my requirements)
I have a newer touring bike with a steel frame. My bike-obsessed friend tells me too that the "ride" on a steel frame is more forgiving — aluminum frames being hard and more inflexible.
At the same time I also picked up a 1980's or 90's era bicycle on Craigslist for $100 that, after new tires/tubes is a great steel bike as well. There's just something about those tube + brazed-lugged bike frames....
There's a whole subculture around restoring and modifying 90s mountain bikes. See for example the XBiking subreddit. Steel frame, rigid (no suspension), 26X2" wheels/tires, rim brakes, threaded bottom brackets, etc. makes a great platform for an all around bike used for commuting, exercise, on road and off, pretty much anything except road racing or downhill racing at MTB parks. You can absolutely find parts for these bikes everywhere. Stay away from suspension, brifters, (hydraulic) disc brakes, and wireless shifters as these are the ares where there is constant obsolescence and older parts are impossible to find.
Have you looked for a bicyle co-op near you? They usually horde bicycles and part them out, like a "pick-a-spare" would do for cars.
We have a great one here, you can wander the wall of hundreds of bikes and pull off whatever you need. Great atmosphere as well, like a makerspace exclusively for bikes.
I think we do different things with our bikes, but this resonated with me.
I've had people comment on my bike before. I have to admit it looks like the jokes about mechanic's cars. It is what's left of a 2010 Trek hard tail.
Simplicity wins every time. I used it for transportation year round - Southern Ontario winters are a salty, slushy mess. Over the years every replacement was thought out.
Single speed up front instead of the triple it came with. Cheap squishy fork was replaced with a rigid one. Kept the 8 speed drive train. Lock on grips because they come off easy. Those brake-shifter combos suck, gone, can replace one or the other now.
A good expensive derailleur dissolves just as fast in crap conditions. If you have 15 kg in a rack on the back, who cares about saving 300g on a seat post?
I can replace the entire drive train for really cheap now.
I forgot to mention that disc brakes win every time. Who wants to replace rims? Plus that keeps the braking surface out of the muck.
I don't think 20mm thru was ever a popular axle type. It should be possible to adapt that to a 15mm thru axle with endcaps or a sleeve in the hub though.
They're a major contributor to the reason that people think that cycling is some sort of sweaty uncomfortable grimness, because they're sold some sort of double-suspension chinesium thing that barely even moves before it breaks a few months later.
Literally everyone who rides these, you introduce them to a 300 quid hybrid or road bike and they're dumbfounded by how smooth the experience is.
Cycling as a hobby is associated with affluent white people which skews the perception. But the last time I looked into this for my own country, a huge portion of bike users were basically immigrants riding it a couple miles though a city on a daily basis to their low wage, possibly undocumented, jobs.
I'm not saying these items are good in any material way, or that these people shouldn't have better options. But pushing up the minimum price of bikes could be damaging for people who use it as a necessary transport, rather than a hobby or exercise.
I didn't say "it's the preserve of" I said "is associated with." Maybe where you live is different but where I live if you talk about cycling most people are going to picture someone in lycra on a road bike riding recreationally, not a concrete worker riding to the job in jeans.
This perception skews the conversation about bikes, and the understanding of what needs people have for them and how they use them.
And again different areas are different but where I live there's not really a very cheap secondhand bike market. The lowest prices you ever see, if you look for them, are willing to wait and travel, are right around the price of a shitty bike you can get from any big box store 24/7 in dozens of locations around the city.
Those shitty bikes unfortunately seem to fulfill a real need, and it's not clear to me that it would be met if you simply removed them.
This could be addressed in a whole bunch of ways, most simply with just a straightforward commuter bike subsidy. But that doesn't seem to be on the table do I don't think deleting these bikes should be either.
Maybe that’s true but the sense I got from the linked articles was just that they are cheap bikes sold at supermarkets. In that context, they are advocating that you should spend 250£ on a bike, with parent suggesting that these 70£ bikes be banned.
Why should we ban shitty bikes that poor people can afford? Why should we ban “fake mountain bikes”? Certainly if they are actually dangerous, but there’s existing consumer law to handle that case.
(Also, I laughed when the authors wondered “if it’s such a rare flaw why do we see it all the time?” Like you’re a bike repair shop, pal. Of course you see the ones that are busted. That doesn’t tell you much about the rate of failure.)
Umm, I don't think the average consumer of bicycle shaped objects agrees. They can pick up a shiny bicycle shaped object in any nearby sports shop or large supermarket. Even assuming they find a second hand one, how are they even going to determine if it is an actual bicycle, or just a bicycle shaped object?
I am all for reparability, but personally I don't want to go back to some of the ways things were done 30-40 years ago and bikes are still great for the environment compared to the alternatives. My old car which I purchased used and had for 17 years is equal in weight to about 150 bicycles!
It's true that modern cycling uses more disposable assemblies than in the past, but I've never had any problems finding parts to repair old bikes. I recently restored a 90's flat-bar mountain bike for a friend of mine. It had an integrated brake/shifter lever that I replaced with generic 3x7 shifters. Most flat-bar bikes with Shimano-compatible drive trains use Shimano index shifting (SIS) for both the front and rear derailleurs. The drive trains on bikes with higher-end drive trains are serviceable. Even when a part is not designed to be serviceable, there are often ways to service it. RJ the Bike Guy on YouTube does this a lot.
All that said, the market is headed towards single-derailleur drive trains with a large cassette on the back. It's a change in technology. It simplifies the operation and maintenance of the bike. I prefer it. So, I may upgrade by road bike with a 3x7 drivetrain to a 1x12 drivetrain at some point in the future. I am sure tech will continue to improve so there will probably other upgrades I'll want to make in the future too.
The amount of waste generated by these upgrades and part-swaps is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Shared bikes should be at the top because they will actually be ridden for that 15K or 50K miles, whereas a personal bike gets no where near that mileage.
Weighted average? Citi bike has 15k bikes and claims to have served over 120 million miles, although they don't know the true mileage because they just use the grid distance between stations. That's closing in on 10k miles per bike, ignoring whatever number they've needed to replace, and bike-of-Theseus philosophical questions.
I'm surprised there aren't greater economies of scale for bicycles, especially bikeshare bikes. A rough approximation... Bikes are almost 3 times more expensive per pound than cars while being much simpler.
A citibike weighs 45 lbs, costs $1000 which equals $22/lb
A Toyota Corolla weighs 2950 lbs, costs $20,000 which equals $7/lb
I would think that we could have quality bikes for $500-$800, and high end bikes for $1000-$2000. Citibikes might be cheaper because they are contract manufactured for motivate, lower economies of scale, but probably cutting out a distributor/bike shop middleman.
Keeping modernish (5-15 years old) bikes running and upgrading them is one of the most confusing processes I have gone through. Many times I have gone to purchase a replacement part or upgrade online, only to put it off 3-5 times because I'm not sure if it fits my bike.
Anyone want to work with me on a project with good compatibility guides and affiliate fees?
As people noted in previous thread about it being invalid on thru-axle measurements, it's also invalid on cross-compatibility. All shimano road drivetrain components are cross compatible if they share the amount of gears https://productinfo.shimano.com/#/com?cid=C-453&acid=C-455. I can replace components on my 2015 11 speed shimano with ones from this year if they are also 11 speed.
All (shimano) 8sp-10sp derailleurs are compatible (possibly excluding duraace, which has a different cable pull). Mountain and road. Almost all 11sp clusters (shimano, sram, campy) are cross compatible with derailleurs. The basic shimano hyperglide freehub will generally work with 8-11sp clusters, possibly requiring a spacer.
If you're willing to go friction (bar end), you can run a mid 90's 8sp Shimano 600 short cage rear derailleur on a 10sp 12-28 rear, with a 1x39 in the front.
It's also worth noting that Shimano just announced the new CUES platform which unifies the 9, 10, and 11 speed drivetrains to make all of the various parts in that range cross-compatible. You already could mix-and-match in a lot of cases with a bit of creativity, but now it'll be an officially supported configuration and they're greatly cutting down on the number of unique parts.
I do think that old bikes are generally just better.
I'm finally on a modern road/commuter bike, after two decades of only ever being on 19070s/80s steel road bikes, and it's just not as good. I paid more than three times as much for it, it's heavier, and it's harder to maintain, what with things like pneumatic disc brakes.
When this one finally goes, I'll go back to craigslist like I always did and pick myself up an old road bike for $200.
They used to have separate 9, 10 and 11 speed drivetrains where every component was specific to the number of gears you had, and in theory you had to replace the entire drivetrain just to go from a 9-speed cassette to a 10-speed. The CUES version has just a single chain, derailleur, crankset, etc. which all work with all three rear cassettes.
(Then, don't demonize the e-bike. It allows longer journeys by bike, makes a bike a realistic option for older and less healthy people who couldn't get around by pedal power alone, and makes it a more fun/appealing option for healthy people)